The Hour of Lead
by Rot-Chan
Summary: When Konan saw Pein's - Yahiko's body, before it was pierced painfully with black buds that would never bloom, fall to the earth, she was certain that her life would weep itself into a deathly slumber. -- Pein/Konan; slight Nagato/Konan.


**Title**: "The Hour of Lead"

**Author**: Shelby

**Pairing**: Pein/Konan; Peiko

**Rating**: High T

**Summary**: When Konan saw Pein's - Yahiko's body, before it was pierced painfully with black buds that would never bloom, fall to the earth, she was certain that her life would weep itself into a deathly slumber. [Pein/Konan]

A/N: Title from the poem that inspired me: "After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes". **Review? Merci. **

* * *

The storm rages outside, tiny flecks of water sliding down the window panes. Curtains the color of wine hang as heavily as her spirits.

He slowly rises, as he does each morning, and will do the next and the next. She slowly rises, skin prickling from the cold.

Her blue hair spreads across the downy pillow like a cryptic devilish halo. The sheets, white and too virginal for her taste, cling to her like a second skin, a nymph in angel's clothing. It's damp, too damp.

"Pein. Come back to bed. Please." It is a command, spoken in a gravelly voice, yet there is a honey sweet undertone, a lining that is soft and feminine and only used when Konan wants Pein.

Konan is not feminine, does not try to embrace being a woman. It only holds her back - tender chains that could make her powerless to the world weapons cuts memories _his eyes. _

Konan drinks him in against the natural light of morning peeking from between the drapes. Pein's torso is perfect. Miniscule healed scars, tiny spots of pinkish raised skin; freckles near his shoulders from bearing vulnerable skin to the sun – these are his human features, the marks of the Living that can never fade with time, but will never grow in number.

But onyx destroys a pale expanse of skin.

Konan rarely compromises. She is not one to give in, but rather tempts and persuades and is a true woman in the sense that with men she gets her way, always.   But now she slowly draws herself away from the bedding and bears her pallid skin to the soft morning light, the ancient hardwood floor that is scratchd and stained, the morning dew outside and the rest of the world living outside their confined corner.

(But it is not smothering in this room.)

"Pein." Konan traces the black studs, the bullets piercing his body, thick markings the color of darkness, staining _glorious_ _perfection_. She rests her chin against his shoulder; presses her bare breasts against his back, lets him feel her nipples tease his skin.

"Come back to bed. Now." And she does want Pein. But though Konan tempts, persuades, gets-her-way, she does not admit, beg, plead with words.

Instead Konan caresses him, runs a coarse tiny hand across the front of Pein's chest – shivers when she feels an unexpected bump, that piece of darkness to match the dozens more scattered across him – and presses into his back once more, drags her thumb along his waistband. Here, in this corner, they are as human as they can be.

When he leans his head back against her shoulder, Konan has him.

Pein will walk into the world - his kingdom today and will be hunted by the hunters, targeted by the arrows, pierced by haunting shadows falling from the tops of the endless buildings and the spindly limbs of trees that make Ame – his subjects mourn. But Konan will make him stay first, bind him to the bed and make Pein want to be real, a puppet's greatest, silliest and emptiest desire, need. _Want_.

"_God_," Konan whispers into his ear, shudders when his spiky locks brush over her lips. Has she surrendered her thoughts to God, or_ her God? _

Konan has only ever met one.

Soon they are entwined, two taut wires wracked with beauteous, painful shocks, piercing electricity crackling between them. That pain, so desirable – because they both know that his shadow, his _life_ is in the lip of the grave – gives them life as Konan's legs wrap around bony hips and her mind is wracked with their true image.

There is Nagato, as enticing as the water of the lake Konan finds herself submerged in, watching from the shore, willing her to radiate life; there is Yahiko – and his skin, smooth and still perfect, because his name is his and his body is his, he is his own – swimming beside her, grabbing her wrist and making her smile under water as they stare at each other through a blurry blockade, eyes wide open through the wetness.

But Pein is the one touching her. Nagato is living each day as Death, and Yahiko is -

- Pein caresses her breasts, kisses her jaw and slips a knee between her thighs -

- antiquated. Obselete. **Dead**.

Dead as the earth, as her spirit and this fragile thing called hope that has broken wings and can no longer fly. But hope, wishing, they belong to children. That she can at least understand.

When Konan saw Pein's - _Yahiko's_ body, before it was pierced painfully with black buds that would never bloom, fall to the earth, she was certain that her life would weep itself into a deathly slumber. And now Konan braced herself for impact, ready to fly off that scraggly cliff and dive deep into a water that no longer soothes.

But as long as she is by his side, his true side, the one that is more sickly as she _who needs her, _she will not be afraid.

Konan digs her nails into Pein's shoulders as their hips meets over and over again in and out of synch, skin against skin, bone on bone, grisly blood and misery hanging in the air. Konan's head swims when Pein presses his tongue against her pulse; her heart thuds unevenly as she silently wills him to move faster.

And then they soar together, despite their broken 'hope', as Pein shudders against her and Konan closes her eyes and almost feels her skin drip off her bones.

Konan hears Pein breathing, his breath warm on her skin; feels his eyes trained on her face; but Konan pictures Nagato's hallowed cheeks; kissing his hands, rough and cool; feeling his breath, chilly with malady, as he wills arms to reach out and touch her, arms that can bring the dead to life.

_As long as she is by his side. _

---

_This is the __**Hour of Lead**_

_ Remembered, if outlived _

_as Freezing persons recollect the Snow _

_First- Chill -then stupor- then the letting go. _

---

**[End]**


End file.
